A Goat Gloat.

So last Saturday I took Benji and Keiran down to Bloemfontein, a city about 4 hours from Jo'burg, to buy a goat for the farm. They were having the National Mich Goat Sale so I decided I had better not miss the opportunity to get a good stud.

They actually had to squish in the front most of the way and we were giving Kieran a bit of a hard time

but we all survived.

The auction was scheduled to be at the end of the show that they had at the end of the week. I couldn't make the show, which may have been useful as I might have been able to get some young ewes/does but all the female goats for sale were in milk or not the breed I'm after so I'm looking around for a breeder now to get our man goat some company.

There were 65 lots and the bucks came out last. There was a very impressive young specimen under a year old who had won loads of things. I put a bid on him but he eventually went for R7000!! The most at the auction. My goat, lot 49, had a number of accolades. He's about 1 year and 5 months and his mother and grandmother both had very high milk yields. His mothers lifetime yield by her 3rd lactation was 2539 kilograms and the Grandmother was 6079 kg by her 6th lactation.

Keiran being wierd at a nice chinese retaurant in Bloem.

Benji, Making sure the last bite went down.

 

                                                          Sunrise at the hotel. Time to go!

I'm not a goat auction pro but they seemed like the kind of numbers I was looking for and they were the highest of those details in the whole auction so I was pretty happy with my purchase. I wanted to make sure he had a Friend or not get a goat at all but I had to take the opportunity and I'm working hard at getting him some company. His new paddock is just about ready for him. He's been staying in the new chicken cage over the past week. I tried to put him in a paddock but he jumped straight out.  He seems pretty content where he is but there's not much space to jump around. I've taken him out for a couple walks to exercise him but he is actually very strong and it becomes more of a workout for me.

When I loaded him up I tied a tarp to the front of the trailer so the wind didn't get him the whole way home.

Everyone came to admire him when he got home.

He can get between 80 and 85 kilogrammes when he's fully grown. 

He'll be in his new home by Monday. I'll keep you updated. 

Thanks to Ricoh again for our newest addition to the farm. With thier help I'll be upadating this soon with the arrival of the girls!



Our new Chicken Cage. - The Chook Dome 4000 -

Thanks to the help of Ricoh who is helping TLC reach it's self sufficiency goals we were able to get this chicken cage to be made for the veggie garden. It's an integral part of the design of the veggie bed system. You can read more about the working of the system on the blog post. 'The Permaculture Veggie Patch Plan'

It's designed to fit over the beds exactly.

This new version of the chicken dome can't be moved by one person but we are never short of hands willing to help out at TLC so moving them shouldn't be a problem. I'm putting two layers of shade netting on the roof and I'll have a small section covered with a tarp to keep the chickens dry.

I was very happy with the quality of the work done by a local business, ABC Cages, and I've  paid the deposit for the second cage to be built for the second veggie garden system.

Right now we have a goat living in here, but I'll tell you about that later!